Jane Akre and Steve
Wilson Win Goldman Award for Fox rBGH Story

Original Headline
"American Journalists Win top eco-award for cow hormone story "

Glen Martin / SF
Chronicle 23apr01

KATY
RADDATZ / The
Chronicle

Winners
of the Goldman Environmental Prize (from left) are Bruno Van
Peteghem of New Caledonia, Gabriel Herbas of Bolivia (accepting
prize for Oscar Oliveras), Yosepha Alomang of Indonesia, Eugene
Rutagarama of Rwanda, Giorgos Catsadorakis of Greece, and Steve
Wilson and Jane Akre, both of Clearwater, Fla.

Two American television journalists are among the winners of the annual
Goldman Environmental Prize, the country's most prestigious conservation award.

Founded and funded in 1990 by San Francisco philanthropists Richard and Rhoda
Goldman, the prize annually distributes cash bequests to six of the planet's
most deserving "environmental heroes."

Each recipient represents one of Earth's six continental regions. Prizes are
sometimes awarded to more than one person in each category. This year, each
recipient will receive $125,000. The awards will be presented at a ceremony in
San Francisco tonight.

Jane Akre and Steve Wilson of Clearwater, Fla., won an award for their
investigations for Fox TV of rBGH, a genetically modified bovine growth hormone
that is widely employed by the American dairy industry but is banned in Canada,
Europe, New Zealand and Japan.

Some environmental and science groups claim the hormone can be linked to
human breast, prostate and colon cancer.

Fox refused to run the couple's reports, ostensibly because the network had
been threatened with a lawsuit by Monsanto Co., the manufacturer of rBGH. Fox
instead tried to convince the pair to air a report distinctly sympathetic to
Monsanto's point of view, Akre said.

Akre and Wilson continued to press Fox to run the original story, and were
fired by the network in 1997.

The pair sued Fox in 1998 for violating Florida's whistle-blower law. A jury
found that Fox had pressured the reporters to broadcast a "false, distorted
or slanted news report." Akre was awarded $425,000 for suffering job loss
on improper grounds. Fox has appealed the decision.

The other winners are:

Eugene Rutagarama, a biology teacher who has moved aggressively
to protect endangered gorillas in his homeland of Rwanda following the
genocide there in the mid-1990s. Half of the world's 650 mountain
gorillas live in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda's Volcano National
Park.

Rutagarama, a Rwandan Tutsi, lost most of his family to Hutu extremists
during the conflict. Following the settlement of the intertribal war in
1994, he was appointed director of Rwanda's national parks program.

Rutagarama promptly instituted a program aimed at protecting Rwanda's
nature reserves and parks during the tumultuous period of refugee
resettlement after the genocide.

MyrsiniMalakou and GiorgosCatsadorakis,
Greek biologists working to save the Prespa wetlands, one of Europe's
richest marshes.

The Prespa marshlands cover about 900 square miles in Greece, Albania
and Macedonia. They are home to some of the last brown bears in Europe, as
well as otters, wolves, 260 bird species, 1,500 plant species and 17
species of fish, eight of which are endemic. They also support the world's
largest colony of threatened Dalmatian pelicans.

YosephaAlomang, a spokeswoman for the Amungme, a tribe
opposed to a gigantic copper and gold mine in Irian Jaya, Indonesia.

Owned by Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, Inc., of New Orleans, the
mine has removed 400 feet from the summit of a mountain sacred to the
Amungme. Under its permit with the Indonesian government, Freeport dumps
about 200,000 tons of tailings daily on local watersheds, polluting lakes
and rivers.

Alomang was arrested by Indonesian soldiers in 1994 and held for a week
without food or potable water in a room contaminated with human waste.

Her activism was instrumental in a meeting between indigenous community
leaders and Freeport CEO Jim Moffett, who agreed to donate millions for
local development projects but declined to change mining practices.

OscarOlivera, a leader in a grassroots fight opposing
water privatization in Bolivia.

Olivera vigorously opposed a program begun by the Bolivian government in
the mid-1990s to privatize the country's water systems as part of a World
Bank program.

Prices to consumers shot up by as much as 300 percent, essentially
making it impossible for many townspeople to pay their water bills.
Olivera, the executive secretary of a local union, organized street
protests, shutting the city down for days.

Bolivian President Hugo Banzer declared martial law, and Olivera was
forced into hiding. He ultimately emerged to lead negotiations with the
government, and in April of last year, the Bolivian Congress canceled the
city's privatization contract.

BrunoVanPeteghem, an Air France crew member who
is resisting proposed mining activities on New Caledonia.

In an attempt to stop a huge nickel mine, Van Peteghem is working to
obtain World Heritage status for New Caledonia's coral reefs from the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organization (UNESCO).

New Caledonia has some of the world's finest coral reefs. And unlike
many of the South Pacific's other reefs, New Caledonia's coral is not
susceptible to bleaching from global warming, says Van Peteghem.

Monsanto exposers win major Award

This is what we are up against. What other skeletons do Monsanto and other
biotech companies like them have in their cupboards?

Goldman Environmental Prize - rBGH exposure

Today there was a whole page ad in the International Herald Tribune because
the awarding ceremony took place today http://www.goldmanprize.org/

Founded in 1989 by Richard and Rhoda Goldman, the Prize awards $750,000
annually to environmental heroes from six continental regions. Nominated
confidentially by a network of internationally known environmental organizations
and a panel of environmental experts, recipients are chosen for their sustained
and important environmental achievements.

The Prize offers these environmental heroes the recognition, visibility, and
credibility their efforts deserve.

Among the prize winners this year: Jane Akre & Steve Wilson, United
States Environmental Policy.

Jane Akre & Steve Wilson

United States Environmental Policy

Goldman Environmental Prize Website 23apr01

"As
a mother and a journalist, I know we all have the right to
information to help us make important decisions about what we
pour on our children's cereal each morning. All journalists have
a duty to shed light on important issues in the public interest,
even when that information runs counter to governments and
industry who would rather operate in their own self
interest."

In late 1996, journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson began investigating
rBGH, the genetically modified growth hormone American dairies have been
injecting into their cows. As investigative reporters for the Fox Television
affiliate in Tampa, Florida, they discovered that while the hormone had been
banned in Canada, Europe and most other countries, millions of Americans were
unknowingly drinking milk from rBGH-treated cows.

The duo documented how the hormone, which can harm cows, was approved by the
government as a veterinary drug without adequately testing its effects on
children and adults who drink rBGH milk. They also uncovered studies linking its
effects to cancer in humans. Just before broadcast, the station cancelled the
widely promoted reports after Monsanto, the hormone manufacturer, threatened Fox
News with "dire consequences" if the stories aired. Under pressure
from Fox lawyers, the husband-and-wife team rewrote the story more than 80
times.

After threats of dismissal and offers of six-figure sums to drop their
ethical objections and keep quiet, they were fired in December 1997. In 1998,
Akre won a suit against Fox for violating Florida’s Whistleblower Law, which
makes it illegal to retaliate against a worker who threatens to reveal employer
misconduct. They must now defend the $425,000 award to Akre through the appeals
process. Meanwhile, with their assets drained, neither has been able to work
full-time in television news. They recently formed a production company to
expose environmental and health news that is increasingly ignored by mainstream
media.